Page 34

34

DANTE

T he tower shakes again—harder this time.

Dust rains from the ceiling like ash. The red alarms pulse brighter, like veins exposed and hemorrhaging. And I can feel it— him —rising through the court like a storm that finally smelled blood.

Seraphiel’s coming.

“Time to go,” I grit out, grabbing Liora’s hand. Her fingers are cold, but her grip is solid.

She nods, eyes fierce and glowing faint violet. “Through the northern corridor—there’s a breach. I’ve been working toward it with the others.”

“Others?” I shoot her a look as we run.

She nods again, breathless. “Rebels. Witches. Elementals who turned quiet. I told you—I’ve been sowing seeds.”

I don’t say anything, but I file it away.

My girl didn’t just survive in here.

She planted a fucking rebellion.

We hit the hallway, and two enforcers are already waiting—twisted, armored bastards with molten runes bleeding from their faces like they were carved into flesh, not painted.

I don’t slow.

Neither does she.

Her shadows leap forward like hounds unchained, grabbing one of them by the throat and slamming him into the wall with enough force to crack the stone. I duck under a blade, slam my shoulder into the second and twist my dagger up through the gap in his armor—right under his ribs.

He chokes once. Drops.

Liora yanks the shadows back, breathing hard. “Keep going.”

We sprint through another hallway—spirals of flame and darkness threading the walls like veins. Every step closer to the gate makes the world feel thinner, stretched like skin too tight over bone.

My Guardian blood buzzes.

It knows the Veil’s near.

We turn a final corner, and that’s when I see them—half a dozen of them—A witch leading, her dark eyes steady even in chaos. The others move in behind her, blocking off the passage from any enforcers still tailing us.

“You were right,” she calls out to Liora as we meet in the center. “They’re turning.”

“Good,” Liora says. “Let’s get out before they remember how to be afraid again.”

They fall in behind us as we move toward the gate—an arched maw carved into the stone, pulsing with golden firelight and a wind that tastes like freedom.

We’re almost there.

Almost—

And then the floor splits.

The walls scream.

And Seraphiel descends like a shadow made flesh.

He doesn’t walk. He glides.

Spectral wings unfurl behind him, flickering in and out of sight like ghosts too old to hold their shape. His black armor smolders with veins of lava, and his gold eyes shine with something crueler than wrath?—

Amusement.

“Going somewhere, little star?”

Liora freezes beside me.

I step in front of her, blade drawn, power burning hot in my blood. “Get out of our way.”

His smile cuts across his face like a scar.

“Oh, I could,” he purrs. “But then I’d miss the best part.”

Liora tries to hide the tremble in her hand. I feel it anyway.

“Don’t,” I whisper to her. “You don’t owe him anything.”

Her voice is tight. “He thinks I’m his.”

“You’re not.”

“Not anymore,” she breathes.

Seraphiel tilts his head like a predator about to pounce. “You feel it now, don’t you? That fire in your chest? That bloom of power no cage could keep? You are more awake than you’ve ever been.”

I snarl. “She’s nothing to you.”

He laughs.

Not just a sound. A tremor in the air. A dark, rising hum that feels like the moment before a dam bursts.

“Oh, wolf,” he says with a smile sharp enough to gut. “She’s everything to me. Or she will be.”

Liora steps forward—just enough to grab my hand tighter.

“You don’t control me,” she says, voice fierce. “And you never will.”

His gaze doesn’t falter. “I don’t need to control you anymore.”

That sends a cold shiver through me, even in the heat of hell.

Liora’s shoulders tense.

“What the hell does that mean?” I growl.

He steps back, wings stretching—eclipsing the light above us. His voice is velvet and venom all at once.

“This is what I have been waiting for, little fae. You are feeling your true self and letting go. Thank you for making the wait less than I thought.”

Liora goes still beside me.

Dead still.

He’s not stopping us. He’s letting us go.

And that terrifies her more than anything. But it doesn’t stop us.

“Run,” she whispers to me. “Now.”

I don’t argue.

We bolt.

The Veil tears open before us, gold and blue and shadow bleeding together like oil and flame. I shove Liora through first, then Mara, then the rebels?—

Then I dive in after them, just as Seraphiel’s laughter crashes behind us like thunder.

We fall through light and land hard.

My lungs seize on the first breath of earth air.

We’re back.

We’re out.

But as I pull Liora into my arms, her body trembling against mine, I know it’s not over.

Her magic burns hotter than ever.

And Seraphiel’s final words echo in my head like a curse:

You are feeling your true self and letting go…

I don’t know what he’s unleashed in her, or maybe that me coming to get her helped him unleash…

But I know it’s only the beginning.